Running iOS 15 on your iPhone and enjoying all the new features it brings, but still looking forward to a jailbreak? Read below to know the current iOS 15 – iOS 15.4.1 jailbreak status and how soon you could possibly jailbreak your iPhone.
It has become challenging to jailbreak recent releases of iOS, as evident from the fact that an iOS 14.6- iOS 14.8 jailbreak tool for newer iPhones only became available a few months after iOS 15’s release. This is also why jailbreak developers are hesitant to publicly talk about an exploit and release a jailbreak tool for the initial few versions of a major iOS release, as Apple will then patch it in the next release.
This basically means the chances of an iOS 15 jailbreak being released are pretty much nil. More importantly, Apple has made jailbreaking much harder in iOS 15. Any modifications in the root filesystem of the OS will prevent your iPhone from booting, meaning every jailbreak must now be rootless and not modify any system files.
The current jailbreak bootstraps assume writing to the root file system is OK and don’t work on iOS 15, including what checkra1n uses. (Procursus, the bootstrap for Taurine/Odysseyra1n, has a rootless branch in progress)
— dangered wolf 🔜AC (@dangeredwolf) September 20, 2021
It looks like jailbreak developers will have to develop a new approach for developing their iOS 15 jailbreaking tool, which depends on finding security exploits in the OS.
iOS 15.1 Jailbreak Status
An iOS 15.1 kernel exploit has raised the hopes of an iOS 15.1 jailbreak. The exploit was demoed by a security researcher on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. It confirmed that it is possible to use the exploit to write to the kernel memory, which is essential for a jailbreak. However, with several new security measures in iOS 15, using this kernel exploit and building an iOS 15 – iOS 15.1 jailbreak will be more complicated than before.
The Odyssey team is using the exploit to create a jailbreak for A12 Bionic and newer iPhones, but there’s no clarity on when it will be released.
iOS 15.2 Jailbreak Status
There has not been any progress in the jailbreaking community regarding an iOS 15 jailbreak. While security researchers tease kernel exploits from time to time, none have materialized into a jailbreak. So far, no iOS 15.2 or iOS 15.2.1 jailbreak or security exploit has been teased by any developer.
iOS 15.3 Jailbreak Status
Sadly, just like iOS 15 – iOS 15.2.1, there’s no jailbreak available for iPhones running iOS 15.3. The update contained several security patches, including one for Safari’s flawed IndexedDB implementation, so if you have not updated your iPhone yet, you should avoid doing so for now.
iOS 15.3.1 Jailbreak Status
Apple released iOS 15.3.1 in the second week of February with some additional security fixes. These releases with security patches don’t really help the jailbreaking scene as they end up patching potential exploits that could be used for a jailbreak.
The good news is that a proof of concept kernel vulnerability for iOS 15 – iOS 15.3.1 was recently demonstrated on Twitter. This is not a kernel exploit, but if anything, it could help the jailbreak community to create a jailbreak for iOS 15. A lot more development still needs to happen to turn this proof of concept into a jailbreak though.
The PoC is even tweetable 😉
void *C(void* a){thread_set_exception_ports(mach_thread_self(),EXC_MASK_ALL,*(int *)a,2,6);__builtin_trap();return a;}
int main(){int p=mk_timer_create();mach_port_insert_right(mach_task_self(),p,p,20);pthread_t t;pthread_create(&t,0,C,&p);for(;;);} https://t.co/kj6Z56jPik— Synacktiv (@Synacktiv) March 16, 2022
iOS 15.4 Jailbreak Status
It is currently not possible to jailbreak iOS 15.4. If anything, there’s a possibility of an iOS 15 – iOS 15.3.1 being available first due to a PoC kernel vulnerability that has been released. Apple has made several underlying changes in iOS 15, making it more difficult to jailbreak than before.
iOS 15.4.1 Jailbreak Status
Apple released iOS 15.4.1 at the end of March with some minor bug fixes and security improvements. If you plan to jailbreak your iPhone eventually, you shouldn’t install the iOS 15.4.1 build. Instead, stick to iOS 15.4 as the chances of a jailbreak coming out for it should be higher — if it drops at all.
If you already have a jailbroken iPhone running iOS 14 – iOS 14.3 or iOS 14.6 – iOS 14.8 and value your setup too much, you should stick to it. This is because the chances of an iOS 15 jailbreak being released anytime soon are very slim. If you find all the new features in iOS 15 more tempting, consider making the jump, as the improvements are definitely worth it.
This post was last updated on April 18, 2022!
